I like this email:

Let's see, we have scores of Baptist Hospitals, Method Hospitals, Jewish Hospitals, Catholic Hospitals, etc., etc.. Each of these have 'outreach' programs both here and in the most dismal places on earth, staffed with dedicated medical doctors and nurses. Where oh where are the Atheist's hospitals, or soup kitchens? I, perhaps somewhat leaning to your ideology, am not so religious... but I am married to one of the most delightful, beautiful and dedicated Catholics on this earth. I delight in her absolute faith, her praying, her laughter, her zest for life, her acceptance of those of lesser faith (like me), her tolerance. All which seems so absent from the liberal atheist.

I’ve been meaning to respond to Hugh Hewitt’s arguments for a Specter chairmanship, but he has been a bit of a moving target. In his latest posts, he seems to have abandoned the curious view that the principle of seniority in the Senate is some ancient conservative principle, the characterization of the anti-Specterites’ objective as a “putsch,” and the thought that the history of the Roman republic tells us something about this debate. What remains are the ideas 1) that it would be better to extract commitments from Specter to fight any attempts to filibuster conservative judges than to remove him because 2) liberal Republican senators would vote against any such judge in revenge if Specter is ousted. (He has also argued that they would vote against changes in the Senate rules concerning judicial confirmations for the same reason.) And 3) passing over Specter would supposedly endanger Rick Santorum’s re-election in 2006.

The likelihood that Specter will make solid commitments to conservatives seem to me to get higher the more heat he takes now—which may be why Rove is watching this debate rather than intervening in it. If he wants to pull Specter right, that is, Hewitt should be lending his voice to the anti-Specter chorus rather than criticizing it. I don’t believe that it’s true that Senator Collins and company would be less likely to vote for a Bush nominee if Specter loses this fight, and Hewitt provides no reasons for thinking that they would.

Santorum is in a delicate position. It is wisest to assume that he’s going to have a tough re-election fight in 2006. Right now, he has a problem with the base over his support of Specter in the primary this spring. He can’t come to Specter’s defense without making that problem worse, and he can’t throw his colleague overboard either. If Santorum doesn’t play a leading role in dumping Specter—and he won’t—I doubt he’ll pay a price for its having happened. If Specter stays and derails a conservative nominee to the Supreme Court, he’ll pay a huge one.

Finally, let me say a word in defense of Lara Jakes Jordan, who reported Specter’s comments on judges last week for AP. (As you will recall, Specter compared Roe v. Wade to Brown v. Board of Education and advocated a pre-emptive surrender to liberal filibusters.) Hewitt bashes her for (liberal) agenda journalism. Maybe she is a liberal. But her write-up of Specter’s comments was good reporting. And while her reporting of Santorum’s remarks about sodomy, bestiality, and assorted other topics last year may have had a slant, the remarks were newsworthy—and the controversy they created would have happened even if a conservative reporter had done the story. We discredit our own honorable argument about the media’s bias if we resort to it every time a Republican gets himself in trouble with his own words.

THOMAS OLIPHANT Why the Specter flap matters By Thomas Oliphant, Globe Columnist | November 9, 2004 WASHINGTON MY FIRST reaction to news of l'Affaire Specter was bemusement -- a classic example of post-election, multisided bloviation. ADVERTISEMENT Upon reflection and a little reporting, I've decided that the assault from the right on the Pennsylvania Republican senator just elected to a fifth term is in fact serious, revealing, and possibly an early indicator of the latest attempt by conservatives -- after a generation of false starts -- to actually govern the country. The knee-jerk thing would be to come to Arlen Specter's defense while he is under assault by forces normally characterized by people of my bent as primarily loony. Bad idea. For one thing, Specter is not worth defending; at best he is relentlessly quirky, at worst opportunistic. For another, in this formative, postelection period, it is more useful to understand the forces that instantly became so furious at him last week. The flap directly involves an ancient goal of conservative politics -- reshaping the federal judiciary. Orrin Hatch of Utah is about to cease being chairman of the Judiciary Committee -- through whose portals all judicial nominees must pass -- because of one of the lingering inanities of the brief Newt Gingrich era: term limits. By seniority, Specter is next. Specter faced a primary opponent to his right ideologically and then a moderately demanding general election. With the votes behind him, he opined that future judicial nominees by President Bush who clearly do not favor abortion rights as embodied in Roe v. Wade are likely not to be confirmed. That is not exactly what he said, but I am positive that is all he meant. He made no threat or promise involving his own behavior. It is clear, however, that in classic Specter fashion, he was declaring himself a player. On the right, Specter's comment was taken as a threat. The ensuing furor produced a flurry of "clarifications" by Specter, all designed to assure conservatives that as chairman he would do nothing to retard the confirmation process of any Bush nominee. None of those statements has quieted the furor. The Bush White House --which could stop the whole thing quickly and decisively if it wished to -- has decided to let Specter twist a bit longer. This is in part punishment and in part to see just how deep the furor's roots are. The same attitude has been taken by the Senate Republican leadership (notably the majority leader, Bill Frist, and his second-in-command, Mitch McConnell), who could also have stopped all this quickly. ... With Chief Justice William Rehnquist's health in doubt, the sense of urgency is only increased. That's why l'Affaire Specter is important. Actually achieving results will take old-fashioned party discipline. Whether to try to impose it is the issue here, and a lot of Republicans much more important than Specter are involved. Conservatives have won elections; some of them now want to actually change things in this country.

Mr. McClellan, the White House spokesman, cited Mr. Rove's comments today and emphasized that Mr. Specter had given assurances that judicial nominees would get "up or down votes" rather than be stymied by filibusters. But Mr. McClellan, given the opportunity, did not offer a ringing endorsement for Mr. Specter, who has also annoyed the White House by differing with some of President Bush's anti-terrorism tactics. Should Mr. Specter be denied the chairmanship, Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona would be next in line. But Mr. Specter still seems to have a good chance of winning the chairmanship given the Senate's traditional respect for seniority.

I've followed the dialogue over the last few days. Based on the commentary, here's a suggestion: POST A LIST OF SPECIFIC QUESTIONS, POSED DIRECTLY TO SENATOR SPECTER, WITH A CALL FOR HIM TO HOLD A PRESS CONFERENCE ( NOT AN INTERVIEW) TO ANSWER THEM BEFORE HE ASSUMES THE CHAIRMANSHIP. For example:

Senator Specter,

1. If your philosophy concerning judicial nominees is applied to the replacement for Justice Rehnquist, won't that necessarily move the Court TO THE LEFT? If so, does that bother you?

2. Can you name ONE Supreme Court Justice who was appointed by a Democratic President AND IS ALSO a middle of the road non-ideologue?

3. What EXACTLY was you rationale for opposing Robert Bork?

4. Do you think our tort system needs reform? Will you support the President's tort reform initiative?

5, Do you think that your track record is subject to the SAME SCRUTINY received by judicial nominees?

6. What is your connection to the Kerry/Specter election signs? Do you know who produced them? What do you think of those signs?

…The goal is to SQUEEZE HIM so that even if he eventually becomes the Chairman HE'S ON RECORD with respect to the questions our concerns.

Dear Rod,

If it weren't that (1) a copy of your article "Cultural conservatives actually represent the norm" appeared on a fascist Christian website called Virtuosity, and (2) that you are in Dallas, Texas, I would have thought you had lost your critical thinking skills, a.k.a "losing your mind." But, I feel better now to realize from where you speak: the land of the biggest kooks and nuts on the right, the home of G.W. Bush, our Bible-believing president, and god only knows how many other crackpots.

Yes, the people you glorify, the so-called "norm" folks may have been shuttled to the polls this election by the Karl Roves and Dick Cheneys, but you folks will not win this cultural battle. Common sense, critical thinking, the demise of Christianity in this world, and the other reactionary notions that you pull off will, for a time, rule the headlines, but Buster, the gains made, as you relate the figures, in the last forty years are going to win the day, and radical humanism and radical humanitarianism will triumph. Just look how far we have come with abortion and gay rights, especially the right to marry a member of the same gender if one wishes to do so.

Get a life, pal, and look at the Sun!

"Hi John, I'm a Brit who has settled in the United States (Los Angeles no less!). I read your article “Afterthoughts” with great interest. I am a member of the Conservative Party in the UK and have been for 15 years... and your line: 'I do fear that this country might be made unfit to live in, as the country of my birth has been, by a misguided and corrupt humanitarianism, sentimental wallowing in past wrongs both real and imagined, and class and race resentment petted and nurtured by opportunistic tax-eaters' struck a chord. The ills in Britain are far deeper and more profound than many people realize. Britain seems to have entered, some time in the mid-1960s, a period of social and moral decline that has continued unchecked by Thatcherism, New Labour, entry to the European Union and any other political development. It really is a country unfit to live in or raise children in, which is why the birthrate is so low, the population is ageing so fast, and so many people feel that their generation should not create the next one.

The contrast between America and Britain could be best illustrated in a conversation I had with some Brit friends who I met up with recently. We were discussing the upcoming presidential campaign and the political issues of the day. They were mystified that abortion was in any way a political or moral issue. hadn't that argument been resolved long ago, and wasn't abortion OK? They were fatalistic as to the deeper meaning of a declining and ageing population (“but what can be done about it?”) And they were largely dismissive of the effect of Christianity on America, as if Christianity were some kind of social mistake or aberration that Europe had thrown off but America still laboured under.

Whom do I blame? Well I would start with the Anglican Church which has since the mid-20th century shown nothing but cowardice in the face of shrill atheism, feminism and liberalism. In trying to retain its membership, it has compromised its principles and now it has lost both….

The Conservative Party also has to take a considerable blame. It has abandoned most of its Judeo-Christian roots and is trying to build an ideology anew based on... well its not quite sure, which is why its agenda is a ragbag collection of populist policies and vague promises to cut taxes. Compared to the Republican party, which bases its agenda in American Judeo-Christian values and builds its policies up from that base, the Conservatives have no foundation, no moral compass from which to operate. The Labour party has a moral compass in its Socialist roots, and even though this is a deeply flawed base, at least it has one which is recognizable to the electorate.

Quite simply, America is a better country.

From a reader:

Your column of Nov. 8 calls Paul Krugman "a whining self-parody of a hysterical liberal who lets feminine emotion and fear defeat reason and fact in almost every column." I was wondering, when you go on to compare Maureen Dowd's columns to vomit, do you think that perhaps anyone might be justified in calling you a whining self-parody of a hysterical conservative who lets feminine emotion and fear defeat reason and fact in almost every column?

You criticize Democrats for calling Republicans ignorant. Is not your
entire column calling Democrats ignorant? Look at your language —
Democrats "fail to understand," they "never actually learn about"
something, Maher is "mindless." President Bush admits that he doesn't
read newspapers, and more than 70 percent of his supporters believe
that Saddam Hussein supported al Qaeda. When Democrats call Republicans
ignorant, they're not just being hysterical.

At times in my life I have been both radically conservative and
radically liberal. I now see extremely good ideas on both sides. I
value The Nation for challenging my conservative assumptions, and I
value The National Review for challenging my liberal assumptions.
Please, you can help the cause of conservatism so much more if you stop
whining and projecting hysteria onto others and root it out in
yourself. Appeal to my reason instead of venting your emotion.

Okay, she's bitter and cranky and takes cheap shots. But underneath all that Katha Pollitt understands something so many other leftists don't: the American people don't like leftist politics and they only like certain parts of liberal politics. Of course, they don't love conservative politics either, because they don't like politics period. Anyway, an excerpt:

The logic of the "Left Is More" position seems to be this: What people really want is a Debs or La Follette who will smite the corporations, turn swords into plowshares, share the wealth and banish John Ashcroft to a cabin in the Ozarks. But since the Democratic Party denies them their first choice, they will--naturally!--pick a hard-right warmaker of staggering incompetence and no regard for either the Constitution or the needs of the people. Better that than settle for a liberal centrist who would only raise the minimum wage by two dollars. In other words, these proto-progressives will consciously choose the greater evil out of what--spite? pride? I scorn your half-measures, sir! Keep your small change!

This makes no sense to me as an explanation of the recent election. It doesn't explain, for example, why Republicans gained in both House and Senate. It doesn't explain why Californians rejected a referendum to amend their three-strikes law so that twice-convicted felons wouldn't get twenty-five years for shoplifting, or why Arizonans voted solidly to bar undocumented aliens from obtaining a wide range of essential public services and to require public servants to report them if they try. It doesn't explain why the Kansas school board is once again a chorus line of creationists.

A friend of mine on the Hill just sent me this notice:

Cancellation

To all those planning to attend the Saturday night Jon Bon Jovi, Bruce
Springsteen, Barbara Streisand, Dixie Chicks, and Dave Matthews Concert
hosted by Michael Moore on the White House lawn are hereby notified that it
has been cancelled.

God Bless America!

The Iraqi Army units supported by the US forces are pushing forwards towards the city centre of Falluja.

Heavy bombardments on the sites of the insurgents continued overnight and this morning.

Residents who managed to escape earlier mentioned very important developments. The terrorists forced some of the residents of Falluja to give their houses and other properties to the insurgents. The other important thing is the use of the residents as a human shield but some insurgents escaped to other areas.

The insurgent fighting is becoming weaker while the US/Iraqi forces are a mile away from the centre. There are important targets that the insurgents may defend them fiercely.

The major insult has yet to come!

Yes, the joke's been circling the internet in one form or another, but it is getting to the point where you could see a film short with Ahmed Queria and Mahmoud Abbas carrying Arafat's body around French high society and getting into all sorts of wacky hijinks.

When he pitches face-first into the hors d'oeuvres Abbas says "Don't mind him, he just really likes the paté."

You can fill in the rest.

I haven't seen it yet. I haven't seen Team America or any other movie I've really wanted to see in months either (baby+book = no movies for Jonah).

However, the storyline of The Incredibles got me thinking. I do love this idea about Kerry running again. Apparently there's a movement afoot for Gore to run again as well. That got me thinking, maybe the Dems should field an all-has-been primary: Dukakis, Mondale, Gore, Kerry, McGovern and Carter could all run. I'd even throw in Pat Schroeder, Jesse Jackson, Doug Wilder, Feraro et al. Wouldn't that be fun?

Rich - That's kind of funny because I saw an interview with a Marine yesterday on Fox in which he very matter-of-factly said the insurgents "don't know what's coming..." he then trailed off for a second and then said, "Hell's coming."

I got a chill.

Kerry might run in '08:

While Senator John F. Kerry is "profoundly disappointed" with losing his presidential race last week, it is "conceivable" he will run again in four years, his brother and political confidant, Cameron F. Kerry, said yesterday. ADVERTISEMENT

In the meantime, the former Democratic nominee will work through the Senate and perhaps a newly formed political action committee to ensure that Democrats have a superior ground organization in 2008, his younger brother said.

"He's in a position of national leadership," Cameron F. Kerry told the Globe. A Boston lawyer, the younger Kerry said he spoke with his brother several times in person and by phone about the senator's political future since the candidate conceded defeat Wednesday. "He's going to exercise that role and be a voice for the 55 million people who voted for him. The position he's in gives him a bully pulpit."
He added, "One of the things that John brings out of this campaign is a tremendous number of people have gotten organized, and that's something we've got to build upon."

Asked whether that might include another run for president, the younger brother replied: "That's conceivable. . . . I don't know why that [last week's loss] should necessarily be it. I think it's too early to assess. But I think that he is going to continue to fight on for the values, ideals, and issues this campaign is about."

In yesterday's (shockingly popular G-File; thanks for the kind notes btw) I discussed Bill Maher's season finale which I had the misfortune of watching. I didn't have room to get into it in the G-File (Kathryn has a rule that no columns can be longer than the "M" section of the St. Louis phone book) but DL Hughley was one of the guests on the panel. I kind of like him in movies. Who can forget his seminal performance as the voice of the gadgetmobile in Inspector Gadget 2?

But he really was a caricature on the panel. He offered one of the most popular table-thumpers in black lefty politics. I'm paraphrasing of course but he said something to the effect of "We keep hearing about how there's so much work to be done for blacks [or on race], but what I want to know is when the f*** are we even going to get started?"

Um, where do Brown v Board of Ed, the desgregation of the Armed Forces, the 1964 and 1965 Civil Rights Acts, the 1968 Fair Housing Act, affirmative action, the EEOC, massive donations to the United Negro College Fund, historic black homeownership, countless black CEOs, and -- oh yeah -- the Civil frickin' War fit into a worldview which says we haven't gotten started yet?

After more than half a century of escalating judicial activism -- judges imposing their own beliefs instead of applying the law -- our country is at a crossroads. There is an opportunity -- one that may not come again in this generation -- to make judicial appointments that will restore the rule of law…. .…The real question is not what Senator Specter says now but what he would do as chairman of this key committee that judicial nominees pass before during the confirmation process. That committee has become a place for character assassination against judicial nominees who believe in adhering to the written law… ….Senator Specter has been one of those to whom what matters is not a judicial nominee's qualifications but how they are likely to vote on abortion, anti-trust laws, or whatever…. …Senator Specter is also one of those people who is often wrong but never in doubt. He has mangled the meaning of such basic concepts as "judicial activism" and "original intent." It would be a tragedy for him to become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he could mangle nominees and in the process mangle the Constitution of the United States.

Shrum said of the campaign's decision to emphasize a final-week revelation about missing explosives in Iraq: "There wasn't disagreement inside the campaign about that. So if it was a mistake, it was a mistake that we all share responsibility for."

PELOSI: And we have to define what values are. Values are, of course, being persons of faith and family and love of country. They also are about ministering to the needs, as it says in the Gospel of Matthew, of the least of our brethren.

So we have to grow the middle class and expand it. We have to protect the environment, which is God's creation. We have to meet the needs of the American people. We have to reach to a higher purpose, and I believe we have that opportunity now.

DOBBS: Minority Leader, I'm just -- I'm just a simple fellow, secular as I can be. Are we going to hear every politician now, because of exit polls, start couching every issue in moral or religious terms?

PELOSI: I believe that you will see more of that, but I quite agree with you, that we have to get to the issues that are the role of government. I think on the values side, the so-called religious issues side, we have to enlarge that issue, because what we're in danger now in our country is the blurring of the issue of church and state. But I as a devout Catholic was concerned when bishops -- some bishops, not all bishops said that it was a sin to vote for John Kerry. That's absolutely wrong. And that -- our own Constitution is at stake if they think that they can blur the issue of church and state.

So I think that, as President Kennedy said when he ran in 1960, imagine then, they didn't want religion to have a strong role. At that time, he said, "The issue is not what church I believe in, the issue is what America I believe in." And that's where we have to take this issue.